July
3 - Office closed at 6:30. Holidays and the evenings before were a mixed bag in the traditional telemarketing world. More people at home since they're off work but they're far less tolerant of a telemarketing call so you reach more but they're a more hostile audience. So sometimes, like this night, telemarketers just pack up and go home. So then THEY can get telemarketing calls.
6 - Out to Southern with Chris & Hedy. Hedy was Chris' fag hag. She was actually a couple years younger than Chris. Most hags are older.
9 - GMAC $286.98 Total Payoff! Roger "Super Mad" speech. So I had finally paid off the Metro. Or so I thought... At work on this night, at about 7:30 or so, the height of calling prime time, Roger had us shut down the dialer and ordered everyone off the phones. Normally a happy-go-lucky, glad-hands managerial type, tonight he was hoppin' mad about some bad calls he'd monitored. Sales were hot, so reps were intolerant of intolerant prospects. "You will NOT hang up on MY customers!!!" Roger screamed loud enough for people in Orlando I to hear. (2 large sales floors away) I never knew him to be so passionate about quality concerns before. I think Lecroix (his boss) might have been the one monitoring.
10 - Reopened checking @ bank. $156 in fees. I had opened a Huntington Bank checking account back in '97 when I first moved to Florida but that fall when my financial situation was crumbling I'd racked up a hefty number of bounced checks. The $156 was the result of a negotiation I worked out with the bank manager, they were DOUBLE that!
11 - First Sat. in my hands. On Saturdays, the room was staffed with only one ABM and a part-time supe. So I was basically the Saturday shift leader. I could feel the power. Arrrrg!
13 - A visit to 33rd. Ugh! On this day-off Monday, I was driving down Kirkman Blvd. not far from the house when I saw a cop pull up behind me at a stop light. I could see him squinting at the back of my car from the rearview mirror. It took me a second to realize what he was looking at, I'd almost forgotten about it. I had stuck a hand-drawn copy of a current registration sticker to my licence plate since I didn't have insurance or registration fee money in April for a lawful registration renewal. Long story short, he flashed his strobes, I pulled over and after a few minutes sitting in the hot Florida sun, I was put in cuffs and taken to jail. Yup, for a forged sticker on the licence plate it's an Altered Tag charge which sounds like I tried to doctor up a license plate numbers on a stolen vehicle. And that's exactly what most people charged with this offence are trying to do so they treated me akin to a car thief! I called Roger from my holding cell, told him what happened and asked if he could bail me out. He couldn't (or likely wouldn't) but Steve did. I got out the next morning, walked over to the McDonald's on John Young Parkway and 33rd and called Chris who came to pick me up.
14 - Pirated checking. Got insurance $170. Renewed reg. $35. Got car out of lot $96. Pay to Steve $250. Just reopened the checking account and I was overdrawing it again. Ugh.
15 - Completed benefit forms. Ed Aldous visiting this week. Ed was Claudia's dad. He reminded me of Roman Castavet from "Rosemary's Baby." Worldly, suave, kindly but seemed to have a dark secret. But he wasn't a devil worshiper. LOL. "You name a place, I've been there."
16 - GMAC check bounced. It was expected as a result of the pirating I'd done. Pirating a checking account BTW is what I call making a (usually total) cash withdrawal of the account even though there are outstanding checks. Obviously not a good thing and I usually did it if I was also doing a Crash and Burn of the account...knowingly writing bad checks, taking all the cash out and forever ignoring the account, including the debt of the NSF charges the bank places on it. I'd done this many times which made it harder and harder as the power of the Internet and ChexSystems grew throughout the '90s and early 2000s. It's a wonder I never got arrested for check fraud. Ooh, I was so bad back in the day.
19 - Ed leaves for Bangkok. Claudia's dad goes home to Singapore via Bangkok.
20 - Rec'd new check card. Tascha seizure, admitted to hosp. New client, BMG. 1. So my VISA check card came in the mail, to bad I couldn't use it, I'd just wiped out the account. 2. Tascha had seizures before, she was very sickly, but this one was bad. 3. BMG Music, oh what a great account, we made a lot of money with this client. People were still suckers for the old "Buy one CD at full price, Get 10 others FREE!" continuity thing.
21 - Ken moves in with Chris; yet another roommate. Ken was a former prison inmate Chris got to know through correspondence (Yes, Chris was the type who wrote letters to convicts who solicited for contacts from gay guys. Usually the cons aren't gay but pretend they are so they can "befriend" a lonely gay guy and then hit him up for money.) Chris had only a twin size bed in his room so Ken slept on the floor. And was Ken one of these predators I mention above? We'll see...
23 - Tascha back. Poor thing. She'd have more medical scares as the months went on, of course. Who knew that she'd only have a bit more than 5 months to live though?
28 - 475 W. Storey Rd., Ocoee, FL 7:45am. This was the court date for my Altered Tag charge. The judge, luckily, saw it for what it really was, just a poor guy trying to delay paying for insurance and registration. I made the court aware that I'd since the arrest gotten the required insurance and registration and they were happy about that. I think he looked at my fake sticker and how pitifully bad it looked, so he showed mercy towards me. (It really wasn't done well, it looked fake from yards away and I'd used yellow construction paper "laminated" with glossy scotch tape since the legit sticker was yellow. Well, months in the sun and rain had faded it to white and the ink had run in streaks.) Anyway, he charged me court costs, no fine and expunged the charges from my record. Whew!
30 - Sent in app fee to United Nat. MC. Ken applies to DM. Despite my recent financial hiccup, I must have been feeling great to again be getting offers for credit cards. Unfortunately this was one of those sucker cards with astronomical fees and interest. I'm pretty sure I declined getting it once I saw the "fine print." (If I recall correctly, this was back in the days before they had to disclose those fee obligations in their solicitation material.) Also, Ken applied at DM upon my suggestion since he said he needed a job. Did he take it? (Of course he was hired, anyone can get hired there.) No. Hmmm.
Weight stubbornly staying in upper 180s. Daily weight notations drops off sharply; after the 20th I stop consistently recording it. Drinking decreased by half the previous month...or maybe I became lax with recording drinks consistently as well?
Movies:
Armageddon
Saving Private Ryan
3 - Office closed at 6:30. Holidays and the evenings before were a mixed bag in the traditional telemarketing world. More people at home since they're off work but they're far less tolerant of a telemarketing call so you reach more but they're a more hostile audience. So sometimes, like this night, telemarketers just pack up and go home. So then THEY can get telemarketing calls.
6 - Out to Southern with Chris & Hedy. Hedy was Chris' fag hag. She was actually a couple years younger than Chris. Most hags are older.
9 - GMAC $286.98 Total Payoff! Roger "Super Mad" speech. So I had finally paid off the Metro. Or so I thought... At work on this night, at about 7:30 or so, the height of calling prime time, Roger had us shut down the dialer and ordered everyone off the phones. Normally a happy-go-lucky, glad-hands managerial type, tonight he was hoppin' mad about some bad calls he'd monitored. Sales were hot, so reps were intolerant of intolerant prospects. "You will NOT hang up on MY customers!!!" Roger screamed loud enough for people in Orlando I to hear. (2 large sales floors away) I never knew him to be so passionate about quality concerns before. I think Lecroix (his boss) might have been the one monitoring.
10 - Reopened checking @ bank. $156 in fees. I had opened a Huntington Bank checking account back in '97 when I first moved to Florida but that fall when my financial situation was crumbling I'd racked up a hefty number of bounced checks. The $156 was the result of a negotiation I worked out with the bank manager, they were DOUBLE that!
11 - First Sat. in my hands. On Saturdays, the room was staffed with only one ABM and a part-time supe. So I was basically the Saturday shift leader. I could feel the power. Arrrrg!
13 - A visit to 33rd. Ugh! On this day-off Monday, I was driving down Kirkman Blvd. not far from the house when I saw a cop pull up behind me at a stop light. I could see him squinting at the back of my car from the rearview mirror. It took me a second to realize what he was looking at, I'd almost forgotten about it. I had stuck a hand-drawn copy of a current registration sticker to my licence plate since I didn't have insurance or registration fee money in April for a lawful registration renewal. Long story short, he flashed his strobes, I pulled over and after a few minutes sitting in the hot Florida sun, I was put in cuffs and taken to jail. Yup, for a forged sticker on the licence plate it's an Altered Tag charge which sounds like I tried to doctor up a license plate numbers on a stolen vehicle. And that's exactly what most people charged with this offence are trying to do so they treated me akin to a car thief! I called Roger from my holding cell, told him what happened and asked if he could bail me out. He couldn't (or likely wouldn't) but Steve did. I got out the next morning, walked over to the McDonald's on John Young Parkway and 33rd and called Chris who came to pick me up.
14 - Pirated checking. Got insurance $170. Renewed reg. $35. Got car out of lot $96. Pay to Steve $250. Just reopened the checking account and I was overdrawing it again. Ugh.
15 - Completed benefit forms. Ed Aldous visiting this week. Ed was Claudia's dad. He reminded me of Roman Castavet from "Rosemary's Baby." Worldly, suave, kindly but seemed to have a dark secret. But he wasn't a devil worshiper. LOL. "You name a place, I've been there."
16 - GMAC check bounced. It was expected as a result of the pirating I'd done. Pirating a checking account BTW is what I call making a (usually total) cash withdrawal of the account even though there are outstanding checks. Obviously not a good thing and I usually did it if I was also doing a Crash and Burn of the account...knowingly writing bad checks, taking all the cash out and forever ignoring the account, including the debt of the NSF charges the bank places on it. I'd done this many times which made it harder and harder as the power of the Internet and ChexSystems grew throughout the '90s and early 2000s. It's a wonder I never got arrested for check fraud. Ooh, I was so bad back in the day.
19 - Ed leaves for Bangkok. Claudia's dad goes home to Singapore via Bangkok.
20 - Rec'd new check card. Tascha seizure, admitted to hosp. New client, BMG. 1. So my VISA check card came in the mail, to bad I couldn't use it, I'd just wiped out the account. 2. Tascha had seizures before, she was very sickly, but this one was bad. 3. BMG Music, oh what a great account, we made a lot of money with this client. People were still suckers for the old "Buy one CD at full price, Get 10 others FREE!" continuity thing.
21 - Ken moves in with Chris; yet another roommate. Ken was a former prison inmate Chris got to know through correspondence (Yes, Chris was the type who wrote letters to convicts who solicited for contacts from gay guys. Usually the cons aren't gay but pretend they are so they can "befriend" a lonely gay guy and then hit him up for money.) Chris had only a twin size bed in his room so Ken slept on the floor. And was Ken one of these predators I mention above? We'll see...
23 - Tascha back. Poor thing. She'd have more medical scares as the months went on, of course. Who knew that she'd only have a bit more than 5 months to live though?
28 - 475 W. Storey Rd., Ocoee, FL 7:45am. This was the court date for my Altered Tag charge. The judge, luckily, saw it for what it really was, just a poor guy trying to delay paying for insurance and registration. I made the court aware that I'd since the arrest gotten the required insurance and registration and they were happy about that. I think he looked at my fake sticker and how pitifully bad it looked, so he showed mercy towards me. (It really wasn't done well, it looked fake from yards away and I'd used yellow construction paper "laminated" with glossy scotch tape since the legit sticker was yellow. Well, months in the sun and rain had faded it to white and the ink had run in streaks.) Anyway, he charged me court costs, no fine and expunged the charges from my record. Whew!
30 - Sent in app fee to United Nat. MC. Ken applies to DM. Despite my recent financial hiccup, I must have been feeling great to again be getting offers for credit cards. Unfortunately this was one of those sucker cards with astronomical fees and interest. I'm pretty sure I declined getting it once I saw the "fine print." (If I recall correctly, this was back in the days before they had to disclose those fee obligations in their solicitation material.) Also, Ken applied at DM upon my suggestion since he said he needed a job. Did he take it? (Of course he was hired, anyone can get hired there.) No. Hmmm.
Weight stubbornly staying in upper 180s. Daily weight notations drops off sharply; after the 20th I stop consistently recording it. Drinking decreased by half the previous month...or maybe I became lax with recording drinks consistently as well?
Movies:
Armageddon
Saving Private Ryan